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The William Davidson Institute (WDI) is an independent, non-profit education, research and applied practice organization established at the University of Michigan in 1992. Through a unique structure that integrates research, educational outreach, field-based collaborations, and development consulting services, WDI works with businesses, universities, development organizations, and governments in emerging economies to implement sound business practices and speed the transition to global engagement. WDI also provides a forum for academics, policy makers, business leaders, and development experts to enhance their understanding of these economies.

WDI is the leading U.S. institution of higher learning fully dedicated to understanding and promoting actionable business and public policy approaches to addressing the challenges and opportunities in emerging market economies.

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Posts by William Davidson Institute

Social enterprise Wello today announced it will license sales and manufacturing of its main product, the WaterWheel, to Mumbai-based Nilkamal Limited in India and Sri Lanka. The publicly traded Nilkamal is one of Asia's manufacturers and sellers of injection mold plastic furniture and other plastic home goods. We hear from Cynthia Koenig, founder and CEO of Wello, about what the deal means not only for the for-profit company, but also for other social enterprises facing the perennial struggle of scaling their products.

In the final article in a six-part series on entrepreneurship's role in women’s economic empowerment, Nathan Rauh-Bieri highlights the experiences of five entrepreneurs in the year-long Vital Voices GROW Fellowship. The women reflect on what they learned from the training, and evaluate its usefulness to their businesses and their leadership development. Their experiences provide six lessons about how to optimize the effectiveness of entrepreneurship education.

Cultural factors can influence just about every aspect of an entrepreneur’s journey. Using a cultural dimensions tool, the authors compared how cultural background influences entrepreneurs in the USA and the Philippines. After finding large differences across three dimensions of culture, they explored how these differences might affect entrepreneurs in the Philippines and how entrepreneurship training can be tailored accordingly.

The VV GROW Fellowship invests in women business owners in emerging economies, supporting them through three training stages: 1) virtual training, 2) in-person training, and 3) growth services and support. Here, four business owners talk about how, in the final stage of the fellowship, they implemented and revised their action plans and evaluated progress toward their growth goals.

Sometimes it can feel like NGOs, social businesses and big development aid institutions are in competition with one another to improve the world. But in an increasingly complex world, we should view violent extremist organizations, such as ISIS, as development competitors. This perspective was a running theme – but one of several facing social entrepreneurs and global development leaders at all levels – discussed at Devex World.

There are some 500,000 entrepreneurs today in Cuba, up from 150,000 in 2010. President Raúl Castro has called the huge state sector “bloated” and has declared private business a key part of Cuba’s new economic model. In May, the communist government passed legislation allowing small businesses to become legal entities, thus making the private sector official. Previously, entrepreneurs were classified as “self-employed.” But when we visited there in May we found that, despite resource constraints, entrepreneurship is booming in Cuba.

Five years after protesters overthrew the Ben Ali regime and sparked the Arab Spring, an arid employment landscape (62.3 percent of college graduates are without work, as are 37.6 percent of young people) have fueled renewed protests. And yet, despite promises from the current government, jobs have not arrived. Is entrepreneurship not the panacea it is often made out to be?

CURE, the charity-based group of hospitals perhaps best known for its innovative treatment of hydrocephalus, might soon also be recognized for its seamless shift to a more sustainable model. That’s the goal of Derek Johnson, who has served since June as CURE’s director for development and sustainability, after many years as the executive director of CURE Uganda. He discussed the organization's innovations and its efforts to move beyond a strictly charity-based model in a recent interview with NextBillion.